The Rain 1 - WfW 22/1 - 1st Part

Words for Wednesday 22 January as given by Mark:
    Deviled                    and / or           Gargled
     Interdependence                             Presence
     Watery                                            Yelling
     Figs                                                Andalusia
     Zoom                                              Snowdrifts
     Headphones                                   Exfoliate

 For this installment I used:Yelling
Again We follow Allan and the people in the plane.

The next morning, the clouds had multiplied, It was overcast and cooler than in the days before. The air was still thin, and the carriers were exchanged often in the many hauls up to Allan's Dunes. Late in the afternoon everything was carried up there and covered with landing slides and secured with more rope. They decided to split up in tho groups The biggest, with Tom as a leader, stayed with the plane, hoping to be able to hold onto the lines and guide the plane in the wanted direction.
  Hank, Allan and a few more stayed with the luggage, armed with ropes and stakes, ready to keep everything dry during the coming downpour.
  At the plane they discussed their possibilities, and then decided that the downpour would not fill up the strait, lake or whatever they were in, in an hour or two. Ergo there were no reason for them all to stay out and be miserable and wet. In the end two for each rope stayed out, the rest took refuge inside the plane and slept in the dry, relative comfort of the cabin.
   After some hours of continuing rain, just getting worse and worse the eight people at the ropes were wet to the skin, and shivering despite the heat, One from each rope went inside and woke up two more, and then eight wet people gleefully crept into the even darker maw of the plane. Twice more rope holders were exchanged places and eight others were sent to replace those swathing the luggage.
  They had a hard time finding their way The sky was pitch dark, the brown fluff ran over the ground, riding on top of the running rainwater, hiding all irregularities in the ground under a uniform, floating carpet of brown. Thus making it totally impossible to see where you put your feet. They had put stakes in the ground at regular intervals, but the massive rain had pulled up some of them, and even those still standing were almost invisible in the dark. The crude lanterns they carried did not give up much light. Despite being dressed in raincoats and anoraks, they were wet trough long before reaching the halfway mark. Only their sense of duty and a deep pity with the crew at the luggage end kept them on their track. Robert was one of the replacement team, and he spurred on the others when they lost heir will to continue. He even pulled out Cordelia, saving her from a tumble in the dark and wet.
  "Thanks, Robert," she said, "I could probably not get any wetter, but that black stuff is mighty itchy once it gets inside your clothes."
  At long last they arrived at the mound of boxes to find a wet, despondent looking group of people.
  "Those ropes," Hank said with a voice harsh from use. "They are the kind, that expands when they get wet. We've been fighting and tightening ropes ever since the rain began in earnest, but I'm afraid a great deal of the crates are sogged."
  "It's all yours now, But we'll send replacements earlier than planned, I'd say two hours from now. Four hours is just too much." Allan said. His voice too was roughened and he was brown from the waist down in the glow from the lanterns.
  Allan, Hank and the 6 other grasped their almost spent lanterns and began the way back.
  "Take care at the 3 kilometer mark, there's a hidden edge down under all that stuff. I'd have taken a tumble if not Robert had saved me." Cordelia yelled after the leaving party.
 "Thanks for the warning," Hank was yelling back, and almost lost his footing. "Bugger the ground under this stuff sure is slippery."
  The way back to the plane was a nightmare for the tired group of refugees. Wet, cold, overworked and in the dark, they groped, stumbled and groaned their way back. Once they got lost, and only the compass in Allan's pockets and Hetty's wits - she made them walk an arms-width  distant, sweeping the dark for stakes, which Mona, the farmer, finally found. She almost yelled her head off before the others heard her over the rain, but finally they gathered at the stake. Allan pulled out the compass and once more they continued in direction plane.
  When they got there, Sarah and Fred, the two medical students, handed them each a piece of soap, and bade them strip and wash in the rain before getting inside. The wet, puffed earth was either filled with small splinters or contained some kind of skin irritant, and rashes was sure to follow if they did not heed their advice. Soon after eight wet, but clean persons bundled in towels and sheet had their hands around mugs of coffee laced with rum. Soon they slept.

to be continued ...